Sortir du cadre, retrouver le cercle | Mathieu Leporini | TEDxHEC Montréal
Mathieu Leporini argues that modern fragmented, linear thinking is insufficient to address today's sustainability crises, and proposes a 'theory of circularity' as an alternative holistic framework. This theory posits that all systems are inherently interdependent, non-linear, and adaptive, organized around three principles: transformative movement toward complex equilibrium, continuous learning, and circular cooperation. He contends that the solution to global challenges lies not in new methods but in fundamentally changing how we perceive and inhabit reality.
Summary
Leporini opens by noting a paradox: despite unprecedented access to knowledge, data, and technology, humanity remains unable to solve its greatest sustainability challenges — environmental, economic, social, cultural, and democratic. He suggests the root cause is not a lack of solutions but a deeper flaw in our system of thought itself.
He traces this flawed thinking to the Renaissance and the modern scientific revolution, which instilled increasingly deterministic, linear, mechanistic, and analytical frameworks. This led to fragmentation — of knowledge into disciplines, organizations into silos, and society into disconnected sectors. He argues that building bridges between silos is fundamentally different from thinking without silos, and that sustainability efforts suffer because they continue to treat separately what is deeply connected.
Leporini then reflects on his own atypical career spanning scientific research, diplomacy, organizational leadership, public policy, and cultural dynamics. He reframes this non-linear path not as a weakness but as a resource, giving him multiple vantage points and revealing that different readings of reality are always possible.
This personal journey led him to explore more holistic systems of thought, including Edgar Morin's complex thinking, Fikrud Berks' work on traditional ecological knowledge, and contemporary Indigenous thinkers like Kyle Whyte. From this synthesis emerged what he calls the 'theory of circularity' — not a method but an interpretive metatheory that invites a fundamental shift in perspective, posture, and epistemology.
The theory rests on one central characteristic — that all systems are inherently complex, interdependent, non-linear, adaptive, and multi-scalar — and three interdependent principles. The first is transformative movement toward complex equilibrium, meaning systems are always in living motion, integrating tensions and readjusting while maintaining coherence. The second is continuous learning, where knowledge emerges through movement and situated experience as a condition for a system's survival. The third is circular cooperation, where a system's coherence depends on the quality of its relationships and reciprocities across all circles, human and non-human alike.
Leporini illustrates the theory's practical application through his experience managing a weakened institution. By reframing it as an organism to regenerate rather than a mechanism to fix, and by creating spaces of circularity across individuals, teams, emotions, and partners, he was able to restore flow and coherence. He also applies circularity theory to areas such as the circular economy, governance, decision indicators for sustainability, and the role of art in territorial transformation.
He closes by challenging the audience to approach any situation not just by asking how to solve it, but by asking what circles — human, non-human, living, non-living — are in relation, what complex balances are already in motion, and what spaces can be created to reveal and nurture connections. He frames 'thinking outside the box' as rediscovering the interconnected circles we already inhabit.
Key Insights
- Leporini argues that building bridges between silos is fundamentally different from thinking without silos, and that current sustainability approaches fail precisely because they continue treating separately what is deeply interconnected.
- Leporini claims that when we attempt to imagine new solutions or innovations, we do so inherently limited by the frameworks of thought that formed us, which constrains our capacity to imagine alternatives in the first place.
- Leporini's theory of circularity proposes that a system in crisis is not necessarily malfunctioning — it may instead be brutally revealing that something is no longer circulating, breaking ties to find a more viable balance.
- Leporini describes 'circular cooperation' as a principle where a system's coherence depends on the quality of its relationships and reciprocities across all circles — human, non-human, visible, and invisible — with trust, recognition, and self-determination as concrete human expressions of this.
- Leporini recounts that when he stopped viewing a weakened institution as a mechanism to be corrected and instead treated it as an organism to be regenerated, something started to flow again — achieved by creating genuine spaces of circularity across individuals, emotions, teams, and partners.
Topics
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